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Metroxylon sagu
Also called True Sago Palm
In Singapore: True Sago Palm, Sago Palm, Smooth Sago Palm (Cultivated in Singapore)
Metroxylon sagu is a suckering, multi-stemmed palm from lowland swamp forests of the Maluku Islands and New Guinea, grown mainly for its starch-rich trunk (sago). Each stem flowers once and then dies, so it is grown from suckers and kept in wet, sunny, tropical conditions.
Metroxylon sagu, the true sago palm, is a species of palm in the genus Metroxylon, native to tropical southeastern Asia. The tree is a major source of sago starch.
Metroxylon sagu is native to the Maluku Islands and New Guinea. It has been naturalised in other parts of tropical Asia, including Sumatra, Borneo and Thailand. Its habitat is in lowland swamp forests.
The tree is of commercial importance as the main source of sago, a starch obtained from the trunk by washing the starch kernels out of the pulverized pith with water. A trunk cut just prior to flowering contains enough sago to feed a person for a year. Sago is used in cooking for puddings, noodles, breads, and as a thickener. In the Sepik River region of New Guinea, pancakes made from sago are a staple food, often served with fresh fish. Its leaflets are also used as thatching which can remain intact for up to five years. The dried petioles (called gaba-gaba in Indonesian) are used to make walls and ceilings; they are very light, and therefore also used in the construction of rafts.
[Contains information from Leaf Area Index (LAI) and Heritage Trees from data.gov.sg (National Parks Board), made available under the terms of the Singapore Open Data Licence version 1.0]
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Metroxylon sagu by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
